![]() ![]() ![]() The action all takes place on a giant Bible brilliantly designed by Camellia Koo that characters pop out of and tear apart page by page as the play progresses. ![]() Indeed, Bannerman, Graeme Somerville and Ben Sanders are laugh-out-loud funny as some such white dudes in beards, amusingly impotent versions of competing Old Testament ideas of omnipotence. "There are a lot of old-ass men pretending to be Gods in this forest," a Black Mamba Snake (Kiera Sangster) warns our protagonist early on. (Indeed, Shaw's sections on pet causes like vivisection are eliminated, as are the sections dealing with Islam – and the ending is all Codrington's own.)Įven once the play gets going in itself, it's clear that it will be irreverent toward the theatrical deity named Shaw as much as Shaw was irreverent to religious ones. Partly a character, partly a mouthpiece for the playwright (how Shavian!), she informs him that this is an adaptation, so he's going to have to deal with the fact that much of what he wrote will be missing and that the adapter, an actual black girl, may have a different take on some of what he wrote about. The Black Girl (a charmingly confrontational Natasha Mumba) comes out to stop Shaw. All are quite happy to chit-chat with her about her search – though she has to fight off a few with her "knobkerry" along the way.Ĭodrington takes a faithfully cheeky approach from the start – with Bernard Shaw himself (a preening Guy Bannerman) appearing and attempting to read from his preface to the story. Shaw's original story was an allegory set in the "darkest of Africa" where a nameless black girl, converted by a missionary, heads off into a forest in search of God, following Matthew's advice: "Seek and ye shall find." There the black girl discovers all manners of Gods from various Abrahamic religions, in their different and clashing historic conceptions, as well as proponents of many modern political and scientific substitutes for a higher power. It's an exceedingly entertaining comedy that will also fuel conversation – about religion, yes, but also race and representation. As Shaw's plays were in their time, it is provocative, playful, dialectical and deeply embroiled in contemporary debate around contentious issues. Playwright Lisa Codrington's adaptation of Bernard Shaw's 1932 short story of the same name is the most Shavian production you'll find in Niagara-on-the-Lake this season. Ah, if only the Shaw Festival did more work like The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God. ![]()
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